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The future of house hunting according to a futurist

Virtual reality (VR), Artificial Intelligence (AI) and negotiation algorithms are new technologies that could take the pain out of house hunting, according to futurist, Ross Dawson.

For decades, real estate agents and newspapers were a home seekers’ first and only point of contact but thanks to the internet, properties advertised in print and online mediums sell faster and for more money than properties offered in online media alone.

But now, innovations in VR, Augmented Reality (AR) and AI offer new, exciting, and often visually rich ways to search for and purchase property.

Perfect pairing algorithms

Futurist Ross Dawson says algorithms can change the way users search for and buy property.

“Predictive analytics means we’ll be far better at judging market value of houses than ever before,” he said. “We’ve already seen analytics help accelerate the approval of home loans, beyond that we will get entirely new capabilities such as negotiation algorithms.”

Negotiation algorithms have the potential to expedite the search and buying process. Rather than searching through hundreds of listings and spending weekends at auctions and inspections, machines could do the negotiations on your behalf for a number of properties suited to your needs, saving you time and stress. That way both the owners, real estate agents and future owners know what they’re getting – down to the number – before they even arrange a viewing.

The futurist says the availability of public information means that it’s easier to connect buyers and sellers with opportunities that are right for them.

Virtual Reality (VR) property inspections

Now you don’t even need to leave your home to explore potential new properties. All you need is a headset like Google DayDream and a smartphone app and you’re transported right into the home you want to view.

Through VR, you can explore every nook and cranny, perhaps with much more attention to detail than you would have during a walkthrough.

“VR is only just starting to take-off in the property industry, in the last 4-6 months,” says David Francis, Founder and CEO of Virtual Method “Few markets are really compelled to adopt VR, despite proven increases in both information retention and ingestion speeds, until they are forced to innovate by increased competition.”

“This is what I suspect has happened to the property industry as international buyers have become a major investor in Australia and VR allows agents and property owners to overcome the distance and put the overseas buyer ‘in the room’ with the agent standing beside them, pointing out the features of the 3D rendered property, in real time.”

3D maps of your home

This year, a number of consumer mobile devices will hit the market that will be powered by Project Tango (Google), Intel Realsense (Intel) and Primesense (Apple).

These 3D mapping technologies depth-map environments so that anyone with a new smartphone will be able to create a high quality photo-realistic 3D model of their own home in minutes.

“The benefits of that are obvious, and probably not so great for those who make a living from ‘framing and photoshopping’ the buying opportunity,” says Francis.

Augmented Reality (AR) interior designs

AR is still an underdeveloped tool but is useful for home-buyers who are still trying to figure out how to design and furnish the property, according to Francis.

“Effectively, AR overlays interspatial 3D content on the world around you in such a way as it seems to be anchored in the real world but can be virtually interacted with. This means that consumers can see key information overlaid onto properties in real time. They will be able to see hologram-style renders on tables in front of themselves.”

According to Goldman Sachs, AR will be a $107B industry in 8 years and Gartner’s top economists say 100 million people will do their shopping in AR in 3 years.

These technologies aim to take the pain out of house hunting meaning consumers will have a more accurate gauge on prices and could rely on sophisticated algorithms to do the negotiating on their behalf. Innovations in technology means that home buyers can inspect and even furnish a property from the comfort of their own home.

“When enough consumers see Virtual Reality, they will expect nothing less than it,” Francis says. “The kinesthetic memory and emotional endowment of a space, that is mitigated by Virtual Reality, is unprecedented.”

Francis says virtual reality will be “critical” for off the plan home purchases and could be in market as soon as the end of 2017.

If technology excites you but you can’t wait until its common practice, check out how today’s technology can help your search for your home and your loan.

About Megan Gibbens

Megan is the Senior Manager, PR & Content Marketing at Aussie. When not in the office, she loves a long weekend spent on Australia’s East Coast at the little known Boomerang Beach (shhh…don’t tell anyone). She is also happiest at brunch or a long lunch with friends and likes to go for a run every so often.

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